Thursday, February 7, 2013

Feedback and All That is Around It

I believe in the empowering aspect of feedback.  I think feedback allows any individual, particularly the leaders, to assess their performance against their perception of themselves.

I believe it is an ability to possess or develop to seek feedback, not everyone is capable of doing it, now either out of fear of being criticized or contempt.

I have always sought colleagues' and management's feedback and even though most of the time positive, I focus on the not so positive ones in order to shape my path more effectively.  I know that is th perfectionist achiever in me in effect, preventing me to enjoy the positives and reprimanding me for the shortcomings.

Today I got a very interesting feedback from one of the perceived women leaders in the organization; that to seek input into your performance, especially as a woman, was a sign of insecurity and signaled the need for hand holding in the decision making process.

Even though I completely disagree with this comment, this was a contemplative input.  That some leaders equate seeking advice to needing guidance rather than an opportunity to improve, gauge,  and empower self to develop.  I am going to pause on this for a while and revisit an old book in the mean time:
What Management Is by Joan Magretta

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interested to know how you will see this in a few days. A learning experience indeed

midnight/... said...

I still see this as it was. I am thinking perhaps that is why a "mentor" is recommended and that mentor cannot necessarily be one's manager unless publicly announced and cleared. Otherwise the manager's mentor-ship is perceived as employees "need for advice". I wonder, anonymous, why you think my vision on this should have changed after a while.